


“Issues“ Surrounding Diego’s Weight

by imoldgreg



Series: The Chubby!Diego Series No One Asked For [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Allison Is A Bitch In This, Anal Fingering, Body Shaming, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Diego Hargreeves is Bad at Feelings, Diego Really Could Do With A Hug, Dry Humping, Eating Disorders, Fat Shaming, I Love Her Really, Im Sorry Allison, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Its Klaus What Else Do I Have To Tag, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Like Really Badly, M/M, Pseudo-Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Rough Sex, chubby Diego, everyone is sixteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:33:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imoldgreg/pseuds/imoldgreg
Summary: Diego is a chubby kid: Klaus likes it, but Reginald not so much. Years of food issues (and incest) follow suite.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Series: The Chubby!Diego Series No One Asked For [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674646
Comments: 4
Kudos: 84





	“Issues“ Surrounding Diego’s Weight

**Author's Note:**

> Obvious trigger warnings for body dysmorphia, eating disorders and food issues - I am not supporting or romanticising any of these things this is a vent fic. Don’t like don’t read. 
> 
> This can be read as a stand alone bc the other fic in this series is basically an alternate (happier) version of this one if that makes sense 
> 
> Also it gets darkish towards the end as Diego grows older

Diego hadn’t actually noticed it until That Sunday Night.

It had been lasagna for dinner. Golden and crispy on top, just the right amount of sauce. Of course Mom cooked it to perfection.

The moment was burned into his brain, forever etched into his subconscious. Those eight fateful words that danced out of Allison's lips from the other side of the table, one brow arching, her lip curling cruelly.

“Are you sure you need another serving, Diego?”  
And Diego had frozen, his plate halfway off the table, clutched in his hands. Seven pairs of eyes fixed on him. Mom was smiling proudly down at him, spatula in hand, oblivious to Allison’s comment. It was a stark contrast – warmth, support, food, or.. Allison.

Hardly a difficult choice to make (as long as you weren’t Luther).

So Diego glared ferociously at her in an attempt to recover from the bright flush that had spread over his face. He pointedly Didn't Look At Anyone Else.

“P-Pretty sure thanks,” he growled, wishing his ears would stop burning.

He held eye contact with her as he lifted his plate up a little higher, and Mom loaded it high with another helping.

“A growing boy needs to eat!” she sang, her face practically glowing, and Diego squeezed his thighs together at the thought of making her happy.  
Allison snorted, and shook her head.

“Never heard of a fat super hero before,” she muttered under her breath, but purposefully loud enough for him to hear.

Luther choked on his mouthful, trying to hide his laughter behind a large fist. Diego clenched his fists hard around his knife and fork, aggressively digging a huge clump of lasagna out and shoving it into his mouth, chewing obnoxiously loud.

Allison finally looked away with an exaggerated eye roll when she saw the entire contents of today’s dinner between his teeth. Five groaned. Ben smirked a little. He felt more than saw Klaus shudder next to him.

“You're literally disgusting,” she scoffed and stood, glancing to Luther expectantly, who hurriedly stuffed the rest of his meal down his throat and quickly followed her out.

The rest of them had to wait until Dad dismissed them to leave, but of course his Number One and oh so ‘persuasive’ Number Three were obvious exceptions to that rule.

“You could eat a little quieter,” Klaus mumbled, voice muffled from his face resting in his hands, elbows on the table. He’d been in a bad mood since he’d heard it was lasagna for dinner, as Four seemed to be waging a personal war against all things that resembled proper food.

Klaus’ own first helping hadn’t even been touched, just pushed around the plate with his knife, leaving slimy trails of partially congealed tomato sauce in its wake.

The sauce had become a milky cream skin, and the pasta was rubbery and cold.

For a very brief epiphany, Diego had an inkling as to why his brother found food repulsive. But then Klaus opened his mouth again, and suddenly Diego Did Not Care.

“It’s not all that appetizing sitting next to a pig,” Klaus flashed him that crooked smile, and his eyes did that stupid glint that always ended up getting him thumped.

And Diego was never one to break tradition. He leant across, and in one swift movement barged Klaus with his shoulder and tugged his plate out from under him. Klaus fixed him with a glare, mouth half open, caught off guard. He smacked Diego’s arm and tried to pull his plate back. 

“You can't- !” Klaus whined – because fuck if there was anything Klaus was good at it was whining – but Diego just shoveled it into his mouth, right in Klaus' face.

“D-d-did you say s-something?” he asked, innocently enough, through a mouthful of (quite honestly pretty fucking gross) cold lasagna, and Klaus physically recoiled, wrinkling his nose. He shoved Diego away by the shoulder and kept him at arm’s length, so Diego stuck his tongue out with the chewed up pasta still in his mouth.

“You’re fucking gross!” Klaus squealed, though he was trying not to smile.

It was at this point that Klaus had accidentally crossed the 'Reginald Hargreeves is deaf until you raise your voice or curse' line.

“Number Four!” a sharp voice silenced Klaus and Diego's outburst, khol smudged green eyes staring at their father at the head of the table. It was as if the man could stop time itself, the sudden stillness of everything.

Diego swallowed his unpleasant mouthful, quickly looking back down at his plate. Vanya, Ben and Five mirrored him.

Watching someone being punished was unacceptable unless it was to make an example.  
Klaus had been scolded, told his language and 'dinner-table etiquette' was appalling, and had been instructed to wash up everyone’s plates by hand.

“With no help from Grace,” Dad had added, and Diego had seen Mom deflate minutely. She loved helping them, she was programmed to. Klaus had flopped back in his chair with a groan and folded his arms across his chest, glaring viciously at his knees.

“Brat,” Diego muttered under his breath, trying not to smirk, and Klaus had dug the sharp point of his elbow into Diego’s ribs, so Diego pulled his hair hard as he got up to leave. The breathless little sound Klaus made in response made his stomach flip, so he headed straight up to his room.

It was then he thought about what Allison had said.

It hit him suddenly, without any warning.  
Ruined what was about to be a perfectly good jerk off session (over a fucking noise? More likely than you think.)

He looked down at his body, and he realised.

He was fat.

Well, maybe not Fat fat. Not like, obese, right? That was when it became a problem. And it wasn’t a problem. Was it?

Diego was just a little.. bigger than he remembered being. That’s all.

He stood in front of the full length mirror in Mom's walk-in closet, and really looked at his body. When had he ever really looked at his body? He hadn’t cared before age eleven, and then training started to have an effect, and puberty happened, and Luther was bigger than all of them but this was.. different.

Luther was tall, already six foot, and he’d continue to grow. He had muscle, Diego had seen it. Not on purpose, he wasn’t weird - he just happened to bump into Number One when he was waiting for the shower. Luther only had a towel wrapped round his waist, and Diego had been furious to see Luther’s body was toned, obviously so. A man's body.

Diego looked.. soft. He looked young.

He noticed the buttons of his shirt were straining slightly, and when he undid them and laid his shirt over one of the spare chairs in Mom's closet, he saw his belly now had a soft pouch. If he leant down slightly it created a crease, and Diego hastily stood back up straight. Superheroes did not have rolls.

Maybe his shorts felt a little tight too. Not the kind of tight that he liked either – there was nothing sexy about this. The fat that had settled round his waist bulged over the band of his shorts, creating a soft shelf. It wasn’t massive, maybe not even that noticeable, but Diego noticed it.

He prodded it with a finger. Soft.

Were muffin-tops a problem? Was This Whole Thing a problem? He knew he ate a lot but.. he didn’t eat any more than Luther, and he seemed in top fucking condition. Diego knew he wasn’t unfit, he didn’t struggle in training – if anything he was getting better every day. He could run fast for a long time without getting out of breath, almost faster than Luther (practically the same, honestly), and he was still the second best at sparring (sometimes even The Best, if he did say so himself). He could still throw his knives with implausible accuracy. He just liked to eat – he appreciated Mom’s cooking, that was all, so what was the issue?

Diego took hold of his belly, easily got a handful in each hand. He couldn’t decide how he felt about it.  
He didn’t have boobs, did he?

He frowned to himself, and was just about to actually cop a feel (just to check, duh), but a slight shuffle behind him made him look up quickly, face aflame.

Mom stood in the doorway, that vacant smile on her lips, but judging by the stiffness in her posture he could tell he’d surprised her by being in here. Diego let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, and turned back to the mirror.

“Diego darling, what are you doing in here?” Mom’s reflection tilted her head a little, her voice still kind even as her internal hard drive whirred with confusion.

“I-I-“ Diego took a deep breath. He told Mom everything, this wasn’t a big deal, but it just seemed.. more personal than usual.

“Do you th-think I’m fat?”

“Fat?” she echoed, and her head tilted the other way, which made Diego’s heart clench a little.

She came round behind him and looked at his body in the mirror, and then spun him round to face her. And she Really Looked At Him.

Diego felt his face heat up again, but then her face settled from a frown to that familiar placated smile, and she shook her head, stroking his hair reassuringly.

“It’s nothing to worry about my dear, it's just puppy fat. It’ll go in a year or two,” she beamed at him and pressed a cold kiss to his forehead. Diego wished he was still little enough to clutch into her skirts and bury his face in them.

“It's not a bad thing?” he pressed, raising an eyebrow and casting his gaze back to the mirror. Was it a bad thing? He didn’t hate it, but he didn’t particularly like the way Allison had reacted to it.

“Of course not silly, there’s just more of you to cuddle,” and as if to prove her point, Mom bundled him up into a tight hug, and Diego nuzzled his face into her shoulder. Her hair tickled his cheek. She smelt so good.. comforting. Warm.

Clearly if Mom thought there was nothing wrong then there was no issue.

Except there was. There always was when you were a Hargreeves siblings.

The issue was his siblings.

Of fucking course it was.

“You sure you can keep up fatty?” Allison jabbed harshly at his stomach, briefly winding Diego as humiliation burned his face. Her hand sank further than it should’ve.

“Scared I'll b-beat you again?” he spat back, recovering quickly and narrowly avoiding another punch, instead grabbing her wrist and twisting it behind her back.

Allison groaned a little in pain, almost toppling over onto the mat. In sparring, the first one to pin the other for more than five seconds won, and got to move up to a new partner. Diego, Allison, Five and Luther swapped round every time, eager for the challenge.

Ben and Klaus had been stuck with each other since thirteen.

“I’m not the one carrying all that extra weight,” Allison hissed, elbowing him in the face and swinging her leg high, clipping him on the side of the head when he tried to dodge.

“F-fuck!” he yelped, his ears ringing painfully loud as he collided with the mat, his sister’s body pinning him in place.

He tried to struggle but he was highly aware of the painfully full feeling in his left ear, which began to trickle hotly down his neck and into his hair. He brought a hand up and grimaced. It was bright red. Wet.

Dad scoffed, and ordered training to carry on, but did allow the luxury of Diego scrubbing the blood away with one of Pogo's handkerchiefs.

In the showers after Luther kept purposefully knocking into him, saying shit like “stop taking up so much space” or “almost tripped over your rolls there, fatty”, that made Diego's face flare. The knucklehead had only started teasing him because Allison had, and anything she did Luther obviously had to jump onto as well.

After the fifth call of “a fridge too far” Diego decided he could hold no responsibility over the trajectory of his fist that had somehow come into contact with the general area of Luther’s face – and he really Didn’t Care that his stupid ugly nose was broken either.

Dad did though.

A lot, unfortunately.

So Diego was sent to his room, the door was locked, and dinner was off the table until he apologized (like hell).

“It’ll do him some good to skip dinner,” smirked Five as Diego was practically frogmarched up the stairs, Dad still barking how much of a disappointment he was, and how he’d never be Number One.

Of course he wouldn’t. Of fucking course. The actual Number One was stood next to Five, clutching a wad of bloody tissue to his bruised nose, glaring daggers into the back of Diego's head.

So, like the natural he was, Diego had sulked.  
Maybe he'd try to take a few tips out of Klaus' book – his little brother was tiny compared to him. But Diego just got so hungry if he skipped a meal, or didn’t snack. How the fuck did Klaus do it?

“I just don’t like the consistency. It makes me feel sick,” Klaus grimaced as he explained himself to Diego one night while he rolled them a blunt, the two sat so close together on his bed that their knees touched.

They had a routine. A Thing, sort of. They smoked weed together a couple nights a week, and it was fun to talk about dumb shit together and laugh until their stomachs hurt over the stupidest things. Klaus only ate a decent amount of food when he had the munchies, and something about watching his stick thin brother shoveling down Mom’s left over chocolate mousse made his stomach flip.

Maybe it was a complex Diego was developing. Or maybe it was just because weed made them both really fucking horny.

Diego decided not to think too much about it. Having Klaus’ thighs squeezing round his waist as he whined Way Too Fucking Loud to not wake their siblings up was enough.

They never had actual sex. They just.. rubbed off on each other. Or shoved a hand down each other’s boxers. They never kissed. That was a silent rule they’d inexplicably agreed upon.

“You've got cotton mouth anyway, and mines too dry,” Klaus giggled as his shaky hands tried to roll another spliff. Diego ran his tongue around his own mouth. He was only frothing a little, but Klaus kept smacking his lips absentmindedly and the whole room seemed the revolve around that sticky, warm sound.

They both really needed a glass of water.  
It had been freezing with the window open, and Klaus had some incense burning in the far corner that was making his head swim. They’d been shirtless – just in boxers – and Diego remembered staring at Klaus' nipples and thinking about how pretty they were. How can a fucking nipple be pretty?

He was still too skinny though. Like always. Diego could count each of his ribs under his pale skin, and when he pinned Klaus' wrists above his head he could fit them both in one hand.

He looked down at his own stomach. Rolls. His thigh was bigger than both of Klaus' put together.

Klaus didn’t seem to care though. He always dug his fingers into the meat of Diego's hips, squealed breathlessly when Diego pinned him with his full body, and made it his mission to force himself onto Diego's lap whenever they were sat together on the bed. He rolled the joint in the space between their chests, their breath mixing. Diego dragged his hands gently over the knobs of Klaus' spine, drawing shapes over his ribs, squeezing his sharp hipbones.

Klaus was ticklish, so he wriggled, his bony ass digging into Diego's thighs, that pretty smile stretching over his face.

“Quit it,” he giggled, elbowing Diego on the stomach, so Diego had jabbed Klaus' side, and Klaus had yelped, crumbs of weed spilling everywhere, both laughing uncontrollably.

He'd fingered Klaus for the first time as they lay cuddled under his duvet for warmth. Klaus was So Loud when he was stoned, and Diego couldn’t stop laughing.

He was really surprised no one ever came in to tell them to Shut Up.

But the thing that really got Diego hot was how much Klaus appreciated Diego's body. Maybe that was vain, but Klaus was rubbish at hiding his emotions, and whenever Diego revealed an inch of skin he’d felt his brother’s hungry eyes on him, his hands sliding over his chest and his stomach.

But then Dad started to notice Diego’s body too. Not in the same way, that would be fucking gross, but he noticed how Diego was .. filling out. Not to his standards, apparently. Would he ever be?

So he upped the training. Reprogrammed Grace to only serve them all one serving. Diego's stomach growled angrily on an evening as he lay in bed, fantasizing about all the different foods he could be eating right now.

But even his and Klaus' midnight munchy raids were somehow uncovered, and the kitchen was locked at night. Klaus had a meager supply of weed infused brownies under his bed, but they tasted like shit and were so strong that even Klaus only ate two at a time.

Dad made Mom wrap a tape measure round his waist and his chest every morning in front of his siblings, and scolded him if the measurements increased or stayed the same.

Soon Diego began to resent the soft layer of fat concealing his muscle, and when Klaus tried to dig his fingers into the lovehandles on his hips Diego shoved him away. Hard.

They stopped sharing a bed pretty soon after that. Diego no longer just slept in his underwear, and he was coming to resent not only his own body but Klaus' as well. Why did he get to be so skinny? Why wasn’t dad making him eat? It wasn’t fair.

He started being meaner to Klaus. At first his little brother played along, argumentative by nature, but soon the consistent bullying from Luther, Five and now his ex-favourite brother got to him, and the only remaining ties in the family crumbled.

Eventually Dad's methods paid off - Diego's body grew lean and hard as he aged up through his teens. He actually looked pretty fucking good, and people were starting to notice it. Fans, girls on the street he passed when he was allowed out. Even some guys. Even Klaus before he moved out, though his baby brother would rather die than admit it since their weed sessions had come to an abrupt end.

The obsession with fitness followed him after he left the Academy. It was good, to have so much control over how he looked. He slept around, worked in gyms, even tried for the police academy. They all stroked his ego, constantly reminded him how amazing his body looked now.

So what if he had to keep a strict regime on what he ate? So what if he had to down a couple of vile smoothies a day, and work out until he felt sick and his vision clouded over with black spots, and his whole body ached for days after?

It was good. He looked good. He wasn’t fat. That’s what mattered.

And it stayed that way. He didn’t see his siblings, or his dad, or go anywhere near the Academy – for years. He didn’t need those reminders as to how bad he'd been. How bad he'd looked. He hadn’t been in a good place – that’s why he'd been fat. That had to be it.

But he and Klaus had the same ‘territory’ – so to speak. They both roamed the streets at night, both dealt with the worst corners of the city's underbelly. Only Diego was trying to clean it up, whereas Klaus was actively furthering the filth.  
It was inevitable that every so often the two of them would cross paths. Most of the time it was Diego interrupting some crack den, or homemade brothel, or investigating a drug bust by the police, where he'd catch a glimpse of his baby brother, always in a worse state then the last, always too thin. Sometimes he had a black eye and a split lip, other times he was chewing the inside of his cheeks ragged with pupils so blown his whole iris looked pitch black.

He never bothered talking to Klaus in those moments, mostly because Klaus wouldn’t recognise their own mother when he was in those kind of states, but sometimes, very, very rarely, Klaus showed up at the gym.

He did this when he was desperate, when he didn’t have anywhere else to go, when something particularly bad had happened to him, enough to frighten him off the streets for a few nights. It could be he'd pissed off another dealer, or stolen from his pimp, or maybe he'd injected himself with something bad, and had really almost fucking killed himself.

Whatever it was, Diego always let him in. Even if all they did was argue, and inevitably end up tangled together on the bed.

It wasn’t the same as when they were younger. Now there was so much hurt mixed in with the raw, desperate need. It was rough, and it was mean, and Klaus always ended up with tears running down his cheeks, his nails digging bloody trenches into Diego's back.

Diego choked him, hit him, pulled his hair harder than he'd ever done when they were kids. He covered his mouth and his nose with one big hand, he'd bury his face in Klaus' neck and bite down hard.

But it was after that was nice. When they’d calmed down, and Klaus had stopped crying, and shaking, and Diego had forced the lump in his throat to disappear. He'd cook for Klaus, sometimes even feed him by hand. It would enchant him to watch Klaus obediently part his lips when the fork drew near, closing around the chunk of food and sucking it off the utensil. Sometimes he kept eye contact, sometimes he was still too delicate to flirt, the bruises from their last 'reunion' still too fresh.

Klaus liked to watch Diego eat as well, and subconsciously Diego knew Klaus wished he was still fat. Maybe Diego wished he still was too.

He'd been a better person back then hadn’t he? Kinder, less shallow. But none of that mattered now. These were the kind of people they were now. Whether that was good or bad, Diego wasn’t so sure. He didn’t think Klaus knew either.

Maybe in time they'd come to terms with their own natural body shape like so many normal people seemed to have done. When? Months, years… decades down the line? Ever?

Klaus' soft hum broke Diego from his train of thought. His little brother was holding a piece of donut dripping with bright pink strawberry glaze, eyes big and wet, but eager: hungry. Normally Diego didn’t touch that shit. He couldn’t risk it. But for Klaus he'd do anything. Even now.

So he took the donut from between Klaus' fingers with his teeth, sickly sweetness taking over his senses. Klaus brought his hand back to his own mouth and sucked the glaze off them before reaching down to the donut box balanced on his knees between them to tear off another piece. Already Diego's mind was racing with FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT-

Maybe they were both fucked, and whatever they had going on between the two of them was even more fucked. Maybe their relationships with food were weird, and needed analyzing by a fucking professional to have any hope in hell of overcoming them. But maybe that was ok.

Maybe they could be ok together.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about the terrible ending I cannot end a fic to save my life but I like the beginning and middle of it so I thought why not just go with that


End file.
